Sunday, January 25, 2015

It's Time to Make a Decision (a sermon for January 25th on Mark 1:14-20)

I see from my
notes that the last time I preached on this gospel passage was nine years ago,
the day before the 2006 federal election in which Stephen Harper first became
the prime minister of Canada. I remember that during that campaign he told
Canadians that they had ‘a choice between two visions of Canada’. If we chose
his party, he said, we’d be embracing their vision and working towards it with
them. If we chose his opponents, we’d be endorsing a different vision. The
decision, he said, was ours to make.

When you and I
participate in a general election, we understand that the decision we make is not
just a private thing that affects only our own personal lives. The moment in
the ballot box may be private, but the choice we’re making is a public choice.
To cast my vote for a political party has the effect of strengthening that
party and ultimately helping to decide who will lead our country.

With that in
mind, I want to think with you for a few minutes this morning about the
decision Jesus asked people to make: the decision to become his followers. What
kind of decision is it? Is it a purely private thing? A lot of people seem to
think it is. They think it means turning away from personal sins like
dishonesty and lust and lying; it means believing in Jesus as my ‘personal
Saviour’, and trying to live my private life according to his teachings.

I think there’s
more to it than that. I think that the decision to follow Jesus actually has a
lot in common with the kind of decision we make on an election day. I think
that when the people of Galilee heard Jesus announcing the coming of the
Kingdom of God, and calling them to repent and believe in the good news, they
would have heard him calling them to a public decision – even a political
decision – after all, ‘kingdom’ is a political word!They would have heard Jesus challenging them like this:
‘Choose which vision for God’s world and God’s people you want’. And there were
lots of alternatives for them to pick from. Did they want to collaborate with
the Roman invaders, or did they want to participate in an armed rebellion
against them? Did they want to transform society according to God’s law, or was
society just too far gone, so that the only option was to withdraw from it
altogether?

Jesus announced
the coming of God’s Kingdom and invited people to choose to be a part of it. It
was a personal choice, but it had huge social and political implications for
them. Let’s look a little more closely at the text and try to find out more
about this together. Let’s start by examining the proclamation Jesus made: ‘The kingdom of God has come near’.

In an election
campaign, political parties set out their party platforms. Hopefully, in the
midst of all the noise, thoughtful voters will actually examine the party
platforms and asked themselves ‘How does this compare with my vision for the
future of our country? Which manifesto can I most readily commit myself to?’

Mark tells us
that Jesus ‘came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near’(vv.14-15). This was Jesus’ manifesto, drawn straight from the
pages of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament scriptures there are a number
of words and phrases that cluster around the same theme – words and phrases
like ‘the day of the Lord’, ‘shalom’, ‘the year of Jubilee’ and so on. All
these words and phrases spell out the idea that the world as we see it is not
the world as God intended it, but that the time is coming when God is going to
act to restore his original plan.

This is spelled
out poetically in Isaiah 2:2-4:

In days to come the
mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the
mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to
it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the
Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways, and that
we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall
arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and
their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

In this vision, Isaiah
sees the nations and races of the earth coming to God for instruction, and
committing themselves to living by God’s ways, the ways of peace and justice.
Other Old Testament passages add other aspects of this. The poor, the widow,
the orphan will be cared for. Land and wealth will be shared fairly so that
everyone has enough and no one has too much. Life will be characterised by
wholeness, harmony, and peace.

This is what the
people in Jesus’ day meant by the phrase ‘the Kingdom of God’. They certainly
didn’t see God’s Kingdom as some sort of ethereal afterlife in which we all
stroll through fields of green forever. They expected to see it fulfilled as an
earthly reality, in real time and space. And now Jesus arrives and makes this
startling announcement: ‘The Kingdom of God has come near’. The Gospels make it clear that the reason the Kingdom of God is
near is because Jesus is near, and he is God’s anointed King. His arrival is a
challenge to people to make their choice: are they for or against God’s
manifesto for the future, which Jesus represents?

It’s in this
context that the call to follow Jesus is given. It’s a personal decision, but
it has huge social and political implications. The Kingdom of God is about
fairness, equity, and justice – what does that mean for the way we Christians
live, in a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day,
a world where those in the top 1% income bracket will soon own 50% of the
wealth? The kingdom of God is about peace and reconciliation – what does that
mean for the way we Christians live, in a world torn apart by hatred and
violence? The Kingdom of God is about accepting God’s instruction for living –
what does that mean for the way we Christians live, in a culture where everyone
claims the right to decide for themselves what’s right and wrong? These are
only a few of the social and political implications of choosing to be a part of
the Kingdom of God.

So this is what
the Kingdom of God is all about. Now let’s look at the issue of how to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.

The Gospels make
it clear that everyone has to make their mind up about this: do I want to be in
the Kingdom, or out of it? Jesus was preaching this message to Jewish people;
many of them would have assumed that because they were Jewish, no decision was
required. “I’m one of God’s chosen people; therefore I’m in”. But Jesus still
challenges them to make a decision. Likewise, being born in what has sometimes
been called ‘a Christian country’ has no significance at all; the New Testament
knows nothing of Christian countries, but only Christian people, people who
have made a decision to willingly participate in the Kingdom of God. What does
that decision involve? This scripture passage outlines four things. In verse 15
Jesus says, “Repent, and believe in the good news”, and in verse 17 “Follow me
and I will make you fish for people”.

We’ll look at the
first two together: repent, and believe
in the good news. This is, of course, the same good news that Jesus has
already talked about, the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand. This is
good news because it tells us that this world belongs to God, not to tyrants or
terrorists or greedy billionaires or even ordinary members of the 1%. God
created this world out of love; evil has corrupted it, but God is not sitting
back quietly and accepting that situation. God has acted by coming to live
among us as one of us in Jesus; he has lived and died and risen again to defeat
the power of evil and reconcile us to himself. And he is calling people
everywhere to participate in a revolution of love that will transform the world
and restore it to his original intention for it. This revolution will succeed,
because it doesn’t depend on human ingenuity, but on the power and patience of
God.

Let me ask you
today if you believe that. Do you believe that the future God has in store for
this world is better than what we see around us today? Do you believe that the
book of Revelation is telling the truth when it says that the day is coming
when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, when death will be no more,
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things will have
passed away, and God will have made all things new (Revelation 21:4-5)? Do you
believe that one day the earth will be filled with the glory of God as the
waters cover the sea? Do you believe that the day will come when we will see an
answer to the prayer we pray every day: ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven’?

If you do believe
those things – if you ‘believe in the good news’ - you will see life differently
from those who think that their one chance for happiness is this brief interval
between birth and death – those who believe that ‘it’s a dog-eat-dog world’,
that ‘the one who dies with the most toys wins’, and so the only way to live
your life is to ‘look out for number one’ – yourself. We Christians believe
that these are all seriously defective ways of seeing the world. And the way
you see the world matters, because it
changes the way you live your life.

That’s what
repentance is all about. The word ‘repent’ translates a Greek word that means
‘to change your thinking’ or ‘change your mind’. And of course, it means a
change of life too, as we turn away
from personal and social sins and commit ourselves to doing God’s will as Jesus
has revealed it to us. So it always translates into concrete actions. In Luke’s
gospel John the Baptist explains this in concrete ways:

And the crowds asked him, ‘What then
should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with
anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax collectors
came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said
to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also
asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money
from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’
(Luke 3:10-14).

And this leads us
to the third thing; we’re called to follow
Jesus. What sort of people can spread the kingdom of God? The answer is
obvious: people like Jesus! And so Jesus called people to become his disciples
– his apprentices, if you like. Apprentices of Jesus listen to his teaching, they
watch his way of living, they learn from him, and they imitate the good things
they see.

Jesus’ call still
goes out to people today – the call to follow him and become his apprentices.
Jesus is busy changing the world, one life at a time. The curriculum is the
gospels, the Sermon on the Mount, the commandments to love God and love our
neighbour, and so on. Each day, we apprentices pray for guidance and strength
to apply the teaching and example of Jesus to our daily lives.

This isn’t just a
sweet romantic ideal; it leads to concrete actions. Many years ago when I was a
student, a friend and I were walking down Bloor Street in Toronto comparing
notes about our summers. I mentioned in passing that my watch had cratered over
the summer; without hesitation he took his own watch off and gave it to me. “I’ve
got two”, he said, “and after all, the Bible says that if we have two coats and
our brother has none, we’re to share what we have”. Now I ask you, what would
that principle mean for those of us who have two houses in a world where many are homeless? Or two cars? Or two
guitars? (there are four or five in my house!) Often the answers are difficult,
but as Christians, we absolutely must struggle with these questions.

So we’re called to repent,
believe in the good news, and follow Jesus. Finally, we’re called to fish for people. All of us are here
today because someone ‘fished’ for us. In my case, it was my parents, and
especially my Dad who challenged me to give my life to Jesus when I was
thirteen. As a result of other people’s fishing, you and I became apprentices
of Jesus. Now we apprentices are called to do our own bit of fishing – that is,
to invite others to become Jesus’ apprentices too.

I actually like the King
James Version here. Our NRSV makes it sound as if Jesus is compelling us to do
something we don’t want to do: ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for
people’! Now that may be true – we may really not want to fish for people and
bring them into the kingdom of God! But that’s not what Jesus said. The King
James has ‘Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men’. In
other words, if we follow Jesus, he will make us into the kind of people who
can fish for others. He’s not just compelling us to do it; he’s equipping us as
well.

Note that fishing for people
isn’t an optional extra for those who like that sort of thing, or for those who
happen to be bubbly extroverts. The one thing leads inevitably to the other:
Jesus says, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people’.To make new disciples for Jesus is an
integral part of the package of being a follower of Jesus. If you take this
element out of the package, you’ve made Christian discipleship into something
completely different.

Members of Alcoholics
Anonymous understand this principle. The Twelve Steps of AA are a comprehensive
program for personal transformation. But step twelve, the final step in the
process, says ‘having experienced a spiritual awakening as a result of these
steps, we then tried to take this message to others’. This isn’t optional –
it’s an integral part of the program. Wise members of AA know that if they
don’t do this, they become inward looking and self-absorbed – which is the
first step to going back to drinking. And Christians who refuse to follow Jesus
in his work of making new apprentices also short-circuit their own growth as
his disciples.

Let’s go round this one last
time. Jesus comes to us with the tremendous news that the Kingdom of God is at
hand – that God’s power and love are at work in the world to defeat the reign
of evil and to bring about a revolution of love. The future of this program is
not in doubt: God’s kingdom will come, God’s will be done on earth as in
heaven. We can count on that.

Do we believe that? Do we
believe that the promise of the kingdom is worth more than all the lies of
power and wealth? If we do, we’re called to respond. We’re called to put our
trust in Jesus, God’s anointed king – to turn from our old way of life, to
follow Jesus, and to learn to do God’s will. And part of God’s will is that
what’s been given to us needs to be passed on to others, so we will do all we
can to spread this message and fish for people, because that’s how the kingdom
of God grows – one heart at a time.

This is our decision, today
and every day. Jesus comes to us and says ‘Follow me’, and we respond, ‘Yes’,
or ‘No’. It’s a private decision, but it can’t possibly stop there. The world
is changed by disciples of Jesus who follow him and then live to do God’s will.
We can choose to work with God and further his vision for his world. May God
give us strength, today and every day, to make the right decision.